Ischaemic heart diseases (I20-I25) were the leading cause of death for both males and females in 2011, accounting for 11,733 and 9,780 deaths respectively. This reflects a sex ratio of 120 male deaths per 100 female deaths.

The remaining leading causes of death vary between the sexes, in part due to the incidence of gender-specific causes, such as prostate cancer. However, other causes which may not be gender-specific also showed variance between the sexes.